The Road to the Final Four
It's been a fast break of action the past five days or so and it has all been leading up to where we are right now. Between the women's and men's NCAA basketball tournament, the final four is finally taking shape.
At least on the men's side of things I can't say I am that happy with it. My bracket is half busted now and at this point I don't really care if it ends up being totally demolished. I feel like every time I put my faith in Tennessee they always let me down, but they at least made it further than Michigan State did.
Besides the fact that I have UConn winning the whole thing, if I had to cheer for anyone at this point, it would probably be North Carolina State. But how did we get here? Let me bring you up to speed.
Friday night we were playing the second half of the Sweet 16 games. 11 Seed North Carolina State had a huge upset win over 2 seed Marquette. Number one seed Purdue easily handled five seed Gonzaga, four seed Duke was able to edge out 1 seed Houston by three points.
Finally, 2 seed Tennessee was able to beat 3 seed Creighton from the Big East.
The teams that played Thursday night to get into the Elite 8 now had to play on Saturday. It was a tall order, but 3 seed Illinois ultimately fell to 1 seed UConn. They actually held things together pretty well in the first half, but by the second half, they were just falling apart.
Much to my annoyance, 4 seed Alabama took down 6 seed Clemson by a handful of points to make it to the Final Four.
On Sunday, Purdue beat Tennessee to advance themselves and break half of my bracket. As the Duke and North Carolina State game was starting I took to social media to lament on the prospect of Duke winning. I posted: "We are one Duke win away from the lamest Final Four ever.". I only got a handful of likes, but I don't really care.
The fact is, I hate Duke, I hate Alabama, and I really don't care for Purdue either. UConn I am relatively indifferent about, so if that had been the outcome, I don't know as though I would have watched any more of the tournament.
Then NC State pulls off a miracle and takes down Duke 76 to 64. It was a beautiful game. Words can't even express how happy I was about the outcome.
Next Saturday we get to see the Final Four teams square off. NC State takes on Purdue, and Alabama takes on UConn. I'd love to see an NC State/UConn final. Nothing would make me happier!
Meanwhile, on the women's side of things, they had a full weekend as well. The Sweet 16 got started on Friday with Oregon State beating Notre Dame by five points, South Carolina beat Indiana by four points, NC State beat Stanford by 10 points, and Texas beat Gonzaga by a lot of points.
Saturday the other teams played with LSU taking down UCLA, Iowa beat Colorado, USC had a narrow victory over Baylor, and UConn Ousted Duke.
Sunday night, South Carolina had a pretty easy go against Oregon State, and NC State beat Texas by ten points.
Which leads us to last night. I stayed up late on a school night and I actually watched the whole Iowa/LSU game. It was quite interesting. I still feel like Clark doesn't play defense like she should, but that's just kind of the way the game is these days. LSU definitely had the length on Iowa, but they couldn't hang and ended up losing 87 to 94.
After that game while I was in bed, UConn had a big win over USC 80 to 73.
That means next Friday we get to see NC State face South Carolina and UConn take on Iowa in the Final Four games. It should be pretty exciting. I'm actually looking forward to this more than I am the men's games!
Sports Talk Social - @bozz.sports
There are a lot of people that feel the way that you do about Duke. I'm not sure exactly why that is but I think it has a lot to do with being tired of the usual suspects always making it to the big dance. Plus, who doesn't love a good upset story?
That is definitely the case. Same reason I am not a fan of Alabama on the football side of things. There are a handful of teams that just seem to get special consideration. I'd honestly even throw my Michigan State Spartans into that group. I'm not sure they should have made it to the tournament this year. Even though my bracket says UConn, I am cheering for NC State!